regarding small spaces and cozy places

Kitchen Counter Dilemma, or #tinyhouseproblems

I have now in my possession the countertop for the tiny house. I found it at Second Use, and had a local countertop guy cut it to size and make the opening for the sink. He delivered it a few days ago to my house in town. I plan to store it in my garage until I have the cabinets I need and then I’ll take all that stuff out to the tiny house. They day I bought the countertop, it was a really bright sunny day and the label on it read “black caesarstone” and it actually looked black, or at least very close to it but again, it was really bright that day. So I just assumed it was black. Unfortunately, as it was being delivered, it wasn’t quite so bright outside and I was able to see that it was actually brown. BROWN. A dark brown, but still.

Dun dun duuuuun….the non-black countertop.

I hadn’t really planned for brown in my design. I was hoping for mostly blacks and dark grays with white. However, my design has been evolving as I buy things on sale or come across items that seem like they’d work well in the tiny house. Now with this countertop, I need to find the right backsplash tile. The obvious choice would be subway tile. It’s cheap, it’s classic and I already know it works great with the faucet I’m using, which is the same faucet I had in my cottage in San Antonio, Texas:

My old faucet.

I absolutely love wall faucets. They’re unusual, beautiful and just plain neat. I especially love the old fashioned look of the cross handles. As I was shopping for wall mounted faucets I’d found another one that I thought would work well, in a more simplified, industrial style, but it was more than twice the cost of this one, so…cross handles it is! Together with the subway tile, it really has that retro look that I really like. Another option would be square white tiles, which I see a lot in Scandinavian homes. They have a more modern look, but the more I think on it, the more I feel that the faucet would hinder any attempt at a modern design, so the subway tiles would seem the best choice. Though I think this time around I’d go with a dark grout to give the tiles more of a graphic punch.

For the rest of the kitchen, I’m definitely going to utilize open shelving. I really love the look of having everything out in the open, and I feel that all of the practical, utilitarian things in a kitchen are beautiful so they should be visible. I also used open shelving in my San Antonio house and I loved it.

Open shelves hold plates, glasses and books.

I’ve already bought some stuff that will go on the shelves, such as a white dutch oven, some white mugs and other kitchen supplies. I know a lot of people complain that shelves like this will collect more dust than regular cabinets, but being that my entire house would be about 200 square feet, spending 5 or 10 minutes cleaning the stuff on the shelves every once in a while seems entirely doable. Plus it’s a small price to pay for the feeling of openness they’ll provide and how beautiful my plates and pots/pans will look on them.

It’ll be a while before I’m ready to work on the kitchen, but for now it’s fun to dream of this kind of stuff! I don’t know about you, but I don’t really dream of installing insulation or electrical wiring.